I posted a response, and it never got approved, so I thought I'd post this here for you all to see. I have to admit that I agree with Rich Deem on probably 95% of his articles. I was very disappointed with this one.

Any thoughts?

1 Corinthians 1:99 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Audie wrote:
"Christianity is not a joke, but it has some very poor representatives."

Even though I'm not American, I don't think gun control will prevent events like the Newtown massacre. Gun control in countries such as Canada, France and Germany - to name but 3 - has not prevented massacres. The problem is with our rejection of Christian values and our embracing of a depraved lifestyle, and seeing this as good.

FL

Hold everything lightly. If you don't, it will hurt when God pries your fingers loose as He takes it from you. -Corrie Ten Boom

+ + +

If they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home.

You might expect a conservative Christian to be in favor of an American’s right to own a semiautomatic machine gun. Sorry. I am a traitor to the right. I don’t own a gun and I never will. I trust in Jesus, not guns.

This implies that gun owners don't trust Jesus. That is ridiculous, and no, I don't own a gun. There are many reasons to own a gun that have nothing to do with trusting Jesus. Much of my family regularly hunts. In fact, most of our hunting is done on our own property. Me personally, I don't hunt, but I am very appreciative of those who do. I guess hunters don't trust Jesus.

Saying you trust Jesus therefore you don't or shouldn't own a firearm for protection is naive. I'm sure there were kids and adults at Sandy Hook that trusted Jesus. I suppose that an armed person taking down the shooter before he could do any extended harm would dictate that person is not trusting Jesus. Ridiculous. Imagine a person like the one at Sandy Hook breaking in your home to do your family harm. Is it 'unChrisitian' to defend your home and family? According to Mr. Deem it is.

We live in a sick, broken world. And this person was sick and broken. That doesn't mean I don't advocate restrictions on guns. I do. I am against the lax rules around gun shows where firearms can be sold with no waiting period out of the trunks of cars. I think gun safety courses should be a requirement for anyone to purchase a gun.

-“The Bible treated allegorically becomes putty in the hands of the exegete.” John Walvoord

"I'm not saying scientists don't overstate their results. They do. And it's understandable, too...If you spend years working toward a certain goal and make no progress, of course you are going to spin your results in a positive light." Ivellious

Clearly, God wants us to defend ourselves from those who seek to do us violence. In Luke 22:36, Jesus even suggested that it is prudent to own a sword - the gun of His day.

In America, there are so already so many guns of so many types, throughout the population, that the belief that gun control will make us safer is a huge joke. Any criminal or person determined to kill can easily find the gun of his choice - on the street corner, quickly and cheap. So, unquestionably, if law-abiding people cannot legally keep firearms, guess who will be the only people with them - those who ILLEGALLY have them - meaning that law-abiding citizens will have no resistance whenever criminals decide to use their guns.

Ok, but a reasonable question is, should we be able to buy ANY gun we want. Well, do I want people able to buy a bazooka? Howitzers? Fully automatic machine guns? No, there is a reasonable limit of firepower. But I think we must also decide what truly makes us safer. And we DO need to be able to arm ourselves comparable to the armed intruder we are likely to come up against, else the bad guys can kill and maim at will, as what's to stop them? The police? Please! Whenever a threat is imminent, we must be prepared to meet it, we can't depend upon police.

Here's some of the cautions of banning certain types of guns, even large-clip rifles like the one used in the Newtown, CT massacre: What does this really solve, as a killer who desires to shoot up a large group of people will simply bring multiple clips and/or guns with him. And while he may not be able to continuing firing without reloading, his having multiple clips only hinders this by a few seconds at a time, at best. Still, one might say, AT LEAST banning such high-clip rifles might help. MAYBE so, maybe not. But a greater worry amongst those of us that want to be able to defend ourselves is that when we start banning weapons, we place ourselves on the slippery slope of legal precedents, and the road to our courts slowly but surely taking away gun ownership rights. It wouldn't happen overnight, but it would likely begin to happen. And criminals and others who will continue to keep and use a wide variety of guns illegally, can't wait for this to happen.

Why can't those who want to severe gun control not understand this will only impact those who are determined to abide by such laws. There are so many guns widely available that NO gun law will ever eliminate the determined criminal from using a gun, but such laws will eliminate law-abiding citizens from protecting himself from such persons.

I don't hunt, am not a member of the NRA, and only own a modest pistol.

Last edited by Philip on Thu Dec 27, 2012 11:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Did Timothy McVey have an automatic machine gun? No, he used a fertilizer for pete's sake. Yet was able to inflict maximum pain and suffering including to children (there was a nursery school in the building so far as I can recall).

Did the 9/11 terrorists have guns? No, they used box cutters and turned airplanes into gigantic suicide vests and we all know the kind of damage they inflicted.

The simple fact is that gun laws and restrictions will only restrict the good guys from obtaining them. The bad guys will always have a source to guns through the black market or whatever else their twisted minds can devise to inflict pain on the innocent. They will always find a way. Arm the good guys and we at least have a chance of stopping them or slowing them down.

Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

I'm not too far away from Rich on this one. Judging by the timing I think there was understandably a high level of emotion, which I and I know many others felt in the immediate wake of the incident. I don't necessarily go to the point of elimination of all guns, or all or nothing restriction, but the idea that handguns and automatic or semi-automatic weapons are a limit against our own government has always seemed to me to be ridiculous given the difference in technology today. Compared to the weaponry of our military, it's the equivalent of taking a pea shooter to a bazooka battle.

Our government is not an "it". It is we the people. Automatic weapons have one purpose and one purpose only and that is to kill people. We don't hunt with them.

So, I don't reduce this discussion to an all or nothing debate of absolute restriction or absolute freedom. I do think that there are reasonable things we can and should be doing to reduce the risk to the general population and that includes among other things, examination of existing laws, whether they are being enforced effectively and whether new laws or approaches are needed. I also think we need to look closely at the attitudes and practices toward mental health in the nation and school security.

I won't get into the justification of violence even in the name of self-defense. I think Jesus' teachings on these for the believer are clear and too many attempt to rationalize them away. That's my opinion however, and it's only in my power to live my own life in accordance with what I believe Jesus taught.

Dogmatism is the comfortable intellectual framework of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is more decadent than the worst sexual sin. ~ Dan Allender

That's all well and dandy so let's say we put restrictions on automatic weapons, restrictions on clip capacity, restrictions on buying weapons in gun shows, etc, etc. Then what. Are we naive enough to think our children are all secure now in schools? What would prevent anyone intent on harming children from carrying multiple handguns (say 4 or 5) with multiple clips (say 10) and shooting up another elementary school? That kind of fire power has the potential to kill up to 50 children. Are we really to think we're safe from something like that? BS. We will have done nothing but restrict law-abiding people from exercising their constitutionally protected right to own whatever they deem necessary to protect their family and property.

Note that I'm not really saying arming everyone is the solution. All I'm saying is that more restrictions is not the solution, either. What is? I have not a clue but a good start would be what FL said, reintroduce God to society.

Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

Automatic weapons have one purpose and one purpose only and that is to kill people. We don't hunt with them.

You realize the majority of these crimes are not committed with automatic weapons, right?
Apparetnly not.
It sounds like the liberalism knows no bounds. You can't just walk into Walmart and by fully automatic fire arms.

I won't get into the justification of violence even in the name of self-defense. I think Jesus' teachings on these for the believer are clear and too many attempt to rationalize them away. That's my opinion however, and it's only in my power to live my own life in accordance with what I believe Jesus taught.

Forget self-defense. If you want to let someone shoot you when you have the ability to stop it, fine. But what about defending your family. Please answer, despite my overly sacrastic answer. If you had the ability to shoot someone who was attempting to harm and kill your children, are you saying you would simply let it happen?
"Well of course not. I'd offer to pray for him. You see I REALLY love Jesus. Not like those gun waving rednecks. Jesus said turn the other cheek. And I guess that means to let criminals do as they will, should they invade your home."

For Pete's sake, it wasn't that long ago that my dad and his friends were taking their squirrel rifles to school to go hunting with the teacher after class. Any school shootings? nope.

-“The Bible treated allegorically becomes putty in the hands of the exegete.” John Walvoord

"I'm not saying scientists don't overstate their results. They do. And it's understandable, too...If you spend years working toward a certain goal and make no progress, of course you are going to spin your results in a positive light." Ivellious

Violence begets violence and the circle can be unending.
There is already gun control in the States, the issues I think is that for some it isn't enough, for others it isn't enforced well enough and for others, the believe that gun owners need to be more responsible.
The truth seems to me that, and I agree in regards to the automatic/assault rifle issue ( civilians don't need them), that it is far easier to focus on the HOW than the why.
But the changing the how ( one can never eliminate it) doesn't address the why.
Why is it that some people believe that violence and killing of innocents is a valid option, that it is somehow "OK"?
This isn't just a individual or mental health thing, it is a cultural and societal thing.
We get boobs and nipples being censored on a TV show BUT the same show will show blood and violence and death with NO editing.
We are sending a message that violence and killing ARE acceptable.
And while to the "normal" person the notion of right and wrong MAY be clear, to the person that does have mental issues, it gets even MORE blurred when they are exposed to the idea that violence is acceptable, even desirable and that killing innocents is "OK">

Anyways, here's what I think.
Most of the article is based on emotion not logic. While I can understand the emotion, he still should've used logic.

Rich wrote:
You might expect a conservative Christian to be in favor of an American’s right to own a semiautomatic machine gun. Sorry. I am a traitor to the right. I don’t own a gun and I never will. I trust in Jesus, not guns.

I wonder if Rich locks his door at night, or does he just trust Jesus to make sure nobody comes into his home. What I'm trying to say is that just because one owns a gun, that doesn't mean he doesn't trust Jesus. Do you wear a seatbelt in your car? Do you strap your infant into a car seat? If you use a car seat, then you're trusting in the car seat, and not trusting Jesus?
I don't buy this argument.

Rich wrote:
As the nation becomes more secular and less Christian, the kinds of massacres that happened at Newton’s Sandy Hook Elementary will be happening more often.

Is this even true? The U.S. is becoming less Christian?

Rich wrote:
Increasing security at our schools isn’t really an option. Sandy Hook Elementary had more security than any of the six schools my three children attended. The shooter broke through the security, using his rifle. Making it more difficult to obtain a gun didn’t work, since the shooter borrowed his mother’s guns. How can you deny a gun to a harmless mother?

I don't see how preventing responsible gun owners from owning guns will solve the problem of people killing. Just by going on what I've heard in the news, the mother had an idea that her son was mentally unstable. One could make the argument that she wasn't a responsible gun owner, if she knew her son had mental problems, and she kept those kind of weapons where her son could have access.

Rich wrote:
The ultimate solution to the problem is to make all personal gun ownership illegal. You don’t need to hunt game to provide food for your family. Go to the store

As others have said here, making all personal gun ownership illegal, just lets the lawbreakers be the only people with access to guns. Not a good idea.

Rich wrote:
You don’t need a gun to protect your family. That is why we pay the police.

"Oh Mr. Crack Head/Meth Head robber, please don't rob me or harm my family until the police get here."

Rich wrote:
The use of a gun in the commission of any crime adds an automatic life sentence (remember, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” Eliminate the people using guns).

Do drugged out/mentally unstable criminals with guns really care if there's a mandatory life sentence with gun crimes?

Rich wrote:
Jesus always had a special place for children in His ministry. His heart is broken that we value our “right” to own a semiautomatic machine gun over the lives of His children. Shame on us, the Church, for not speaking up before. Forgive me, Jesus.

I can sympathize with the emotion that Rich feels with this whole situation. But this is just too much. Responsible gun owners own guns to protect their children.

1 Corinthians 1:99 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Audie wrote:
"Christianity is not a joke, but it has some very poor representatives."

PaulSacramento wrote:Violence begets violence and the circle can be unending.
There is already gun control in the States, the issues I think is that for some it isn't enough, for others it isn't enforced well enough and for others, the believe that gun owners need to be more responsible.
The truth seems to me that, and I agree in regards to the automatic/assault rifle issue ( civilians don't need them), that it is far easier to focus on the HOW than the why.
But the changing the how ( one can never eliminate it) doesn't address the why.
Why is it that some people believe that violence and killing of innocents is a valid option, that it is somehow "OK"?
This isn't just a individual or mental health thing, it is a cultural and societal thing.
We get boobs and nipples being censored on a TV show BUT the same show will show blood and violence and death with NO editing.
We are sending a message that violence and killing ARE acceptable.
And while to the "normal" person the notion of right and wrong MAY be clear, to the person that does have mental issues, it gets even MORE blurred when they are exposed to the idea that violence is acceptable, even desirable and that killing innocents is "OK">

Paul, it is neither cultural nor societal nor can it be naively addressed as such as we painfully experienced on 9/11. Those who are hell-bent on evil and destruction of persons and property will always, always, find the means to do it. The question is whether or not we can stop them and what gives us - the good guys, the most leverage to do so. That is where the problem and the solution lies.

Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

PaulSacramento wrote:Violence begets violence and the circle can be unending.
There is already gun control in the States, the issues I think is that for some it isn't enough, for others it isn't enforced well enough and for others, the believe that gun owners need to be more responsible.
The truth seems to me that, and I agree in regards to the automatic/assault rifle issue ( civilians don't need them), that it is far easier to focus on the HOW than the why.
But the changing the how ( one can never eliminate it) doesn't address the why.
Why is it that some people believe that violence and killing of innocents is a valid option, that it is somehow "OK"?
This isn't just a individual or mental health thing, it is a cultural and societal thing.
We get boobs and nipples being censored on a TV show BUT the same show will show blood and violence and death with NO editing.
We are sending a message that violence and killing ARE acceptable.
And while to the "normal" person the notion of right and wrong MAY be clear, to the person that does have mental issues, it gets even MORE blurred when they are exposed to the idea that violence is acceptable, even desirable and that killing innocents is "OK">

Paul, it is neither cultural nor societal nor can it be naively addressed as such as we painfully experienced on 9/11. Those who are hell-bent on evil and destruction of persons and property will always, always, find the means to do it. The question is whether or not we can stop them and what gives us - the good guys, the most leverage to do so. That is where the problem and the solution lies.

I don't wanna get into the 9/11 issue and that is a VERY different issue.
I am speaking about how in our culture violence and killing IS acceptable or at least "ok".
It seems some people are advocating arming teachers or putting security guards in the schools and I ask this:
How to other countries mange to protect their kids and DON'T do this?
Doing this is simply stating that "might makes right" , in other words, peace VIA superior fire power and is THAT the message we want to give?
Someone said that if there were armed people in the school ( teachers of security) that he never would have killed so many.
Maybe it's me but ONE dead child is one dead child TOO MANY, the number of dead children doesn't, IMO, make his crime any more horrible ( I know we tend to get overwhelmed with numbers).
My point is that, while it is true that some people just want to watch the world burn, what is also true is what are WE doing about it?
And trying to make sure the good guys have more guns than the bad guys is NOT the way.

IMO, if you want to stop people from doing these horrific things you need to address the WHY as much ( if not more so) as the HOW.
I've seen lots of discussion and debates about guns, but none about WHY He did it and how we can make sure another like him doesn't do it.

PaulS wrote:
Someone said that if there were armed people in the school ( teachers of security) that he never would have killed so many.

I know this is speculation on my part, but who's to say that if there was an armed policeman/trained security(not rent-a-cop with pepper spray) the shooter may not have even attempted the shooting. Remember, this shooter was a coward. He went after those who couldn't defend themselves. IMO,arming teachers is not the solution.

PaulS wrote:
Maybe it's me but ONE dead child is one dead child TOO MANY, the number of dead children doesn't, IMO, make his crime any more horrible ( I know we tend to get overwhelmed with numbers).

Paul, are you really saying that if an armed policeman had entered and killed the shooter before all of the people were killed, then that wouldn't have been better?

PaulS wrote:
And trying to make sure the good guys have more guns than the bad guys is NOT the way.

1 Corinthians 1:99 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Audie wrote:
"Christianity is not a joke, but it has some very poor representatives."